


Bloom

by katsukii



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:49:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21585661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsukii/pseuds/katsukii
Summary: Soulmate AU in which you only see color when you first touch your soulmate. AU where the first time Light and L touch is when they fight each other.
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Comments: 6
Kudos: 221





	Bloom

All his life, Light Yagami has seen in shades of black and white.

When the sun rises in the morning and casts thick, hazy beams through his curtains, it's white. When young birds flit by and tweet their songs to one another, feathers falling from their downy wings like fresh snow, they're grey. And when the flowers outside his terrace open their petals to the warm air and endless sky, they're black. But to Soichiro and Sachiko, they're all sorts of hues that Light cannot begin to fathom - crimsons, aquamarines,chartreuses. Even a simple "red" or "green" is loaded with more meaning than Light can ever understand, and it makes him grind his teeth against one another in frustration. He is jealous that his parents can see the world in all its grandeur, while he is stuck seeing it in monochromatics.

Light knows that in order to see color, he has to meet his soulmate - and this poses a problem. For one, he lives in the Kanto region, a densely populated area and a constant hub of activity. Second, he is eighteen and he has never once seen even a hint of color. Realistically, he should've passed his soulmate at least once by now, either at high school, in the crowded streets, or at university. But his eyes still depict only blacks and greys, and he loathes it. He desperately wants to see in color but he has no real motivation to find a soulmate; Light Yagami does not believe in love; he thinks it is a trite notion, but color demands love, and so he has to resign himself to a fruitless search.

Sometimes, he wonders if the criminals he punishes can see in color. He wonders if the murderers, the pedophiles, the assaulters - can they see whatever magenta is? Do they see all the hues of a sunset, all the colors in a macaw's wing?

Thinking about this angers him, and he makes a point of killing an extra few criminals just for good measure.

He joins the task force not long after his first week of university. Until this point, he has been methodically killing criminals each evening as he stews over his plans for the New World. Joining the task force interrupts his killing flow, yes, but he does not care; this way he has direct access to all things Kira, and he can better prepare for how to evade suspicion by knowing what lead everyone is following. Still, with as much progress as he makes under the name of Kira, he makes no progress as Light Yagami. His world is the same as it ever has been, devoid of all color, harsh in the blacks and greys that scathe his pride. At To-Oh, he hears so much chatter from elated girls of finally being able to see pink or blue or yellow, and it only angers him more. How dare anyone else find their soulmate while he, Light Yagami, student genius, can't?

His anger only stands to grow with each passing day. As Kira, it's his anger at an imposter, posing as him and slandering his name; as Light, it's anger about being nineteen and not knowing his soulmate. Even Aizawa talks about what colors are like, and it makes Light dread being with the task force. It feels like everyone around him has what he doesn't, and his own inadequacy is smothering. It chokes the air from his lungs; he has to excuse himself from the table of detectives and step away for a breath of air. He hates this. He does not need love, but he needs color. He needs to know what it's like. He needs to be equals with everyone else.

He is almost twenty and in his first fistfight when it happens. He gets knocked upside the jaw and his teeth snap down on his tongue, hard. L's heel is digging deep into his chin, and just like that the pain comes and goes; Light's mouth fills with a sweet ichor and he spits into his palm, looking at the gooey red substance aghast.

 _Red._ His brain scrambles to match the name to the color; it _must_ be red. Blood is red, he has heard; _blood is red_ , and so are flowers, and sunsets, and holly berries on Christmas trees. And as blood drips down his lip, pouring forth from the wound he bit into his own tongue, his world explodes into color. He watches his skin become painted with peachy tones; he gasps audibly as the paintings on the walls take on a myriad of blues and tans, ocean waves crashing into soft shores. L stays relatively the same, black hair, pale face, but blue washes gently over the fabric of his jeans, and Light thinks it is quite a fitting color for him. His head whirls to look out the window; the city blooms before his eyes like a flower on his terrace. He blinks fast, then turns to L, and punches him straight in the face.

_This is his soulmate._

He tries to keep himself from showing anything.

On the one hand, he is happy that he can finally see in color. The world is so overwhelming now, every color foreign to him but familiar as well - that one's green, he notes, looking at the patterns on the overturned sofa, and that one - Misa's lipgloss - is magenta. Or, at least, he thinks it is. It's a soft, floral hue, and it compliments Misa perfectly. She looks at him, aghast, but there's a twinkle in her starlight blue eyes that betrays amusement. He smiles at her, and she blushes scarlet.

Still. On the other hand, he feels a rising sickness that his soulmate is the man who is trying to defeat him. The man who's trying to take away his power, take away his name. His identity. Of all people, it has to be L. The person who colors his world is his mortal enemy.

Suddenly, seeing colors makes Light want to vomit.

It's weeks later when Light kisses L for the first time, and neither of them talk about it for at least three days. Light doesn't believe in love, but he feels part of himself falling into that pit. It's an endless void clawing at his heart and making it skip beats whenever L's hand brushes against his own, and it's dangerous. He hates the way it makes him feel, the lightheadedness and the feathery feeling in his stomach whenever L looks at him with those sunken eyes.

He is twenty when he realizes he is in love with L, and halfway to twenty one when L dies. Light watches him crash to the ground, and he moves before he thinks, rushing to catch him. As L's life withers away before Light's very eyes, so too does the color in his pants, blue, the color in his skin, the color everywhere. Blue. The sky, the ocean, L. Light presses a monochrome kiss to the dying man's lips, reveling in his warmth while he still can. He is in love with L, but love is nothing to Kira. Kira must change the world, and love will do nothing to stop crime.

For the rest of his life, Light Yagami sees in shades of black and white. When the sun sets at night, it's scratchy blacks and greys blending into one another, the sun a white orb at the center. When birds fly away for the winter and leave their nests behind, they're grey. And when the flowers on his terrace wilt and die, the black petals fall to the deck one by one, in orderly fashion. He is jealous that other people get to live their lives with their soulmates and see color forever. How dare the evil of the world get to live in color while he, Kira, god of the new world, is banished to a monochrome world?

Being a god, he thinks, does not matter. All the power in the world, and he can't even have the one he loves. Ryuk was right - picking up the Death Note was a curse.

So much for soulmates.


End file.
